Too Purple
by Muggle Jane
Summary: Hermione is trying to bring balance into her love life! A love triangle in which Severus does NOT sulk, Lucius is condescending, and Hermione is way out of her depth. Oneshot, written for the HPFC Beautiful Meanings Competition


**A/N: I don't own any of the characters and have no intention of making money from this. Written for the Beautiful Meanings Competition. This was definitely a challenge!**

It was hot in the backroom of the apothecary shop, despite being a chilly late autumn evening. I'd already taken my heavy work robes and unbuttoned as much of my blouse as propriety would allow. The dour-looking man pacing back and forth in front of me with his hands clasped behind his back seemed unbothered by the heat, still wearing his high-collared black robes, but a glance up at him as he came particularly close showed a sheen of sweat across his forehead. He dressed much the same way he had when he'd been Potions master at Hogwarts, though his robes always included a high collar now.

"You can just take off your robes, Severus," I told him softly. I took the tiny cork out of the miniscule bottle of phoenix tears and carefully added one drop to the liquid in the cauldron in front of me. "I've seen the lot."

I'd been the one to pour Essence of Dittany on him when I'd accompanied Harry to the Shrieking Shack. I'd been the one to apparate with him to St. Mungo's, where they already knew the anti-venom to use for that bloody snake from when Mr. Weasley had been attacked just two years ago. I'd been the one who'd taken over his care, despite great protest from him, when he'd been released from the hospital. I'd seen the extent of the scars on more than one occasion.

I could feel his scowl, not daring to look up from my work again to see it. I thumbed the stopper back into the glass container and set it gently at the back of the bench. "The shop is locked up for the night, the only other person who can come in is Lucius, and he's seen it all too," I continued.

He stared at me for a moment before he paced around behind me and I heard the rustle of the thick fabric as he took off his robes. He didn't come back into view, and I didn't dare take my attention off of the bench to see where he'd gotten to. He was still in the room with me, though, I was sure of it.

Then he was behind me, close enough that I could hear him breathing over the gentle boil in my small cauldron. A flash of black hair in the corner of my eye showed that he was looking over my shoulder. "Ready for the aconite?" he asked in his thin voice, somewhat close to my ear. Even after he'd fully recovered from the grievous wounds the snake attack had left on his neck, his top volume was barely above a whisper.

I nodded, wiping my own forehead with the back of my wrist. I lifted the small dish of powdered aconite flowers and set it carefully beside the bubbling cauldron. We were making a new version of the Wolfsbane Potion that was meant to be more effective and, going from what Remus had said, taste better. There were quite a few new werewolves now after the war and, as one of the best Potioneers alive, Severus had been contracted to come up with something new for them. As his apprentice, I was helping him.

I leaned forward to grab the silver scoop and my back brushed against his chest as I straightened. I fought down the thrill I felt at the contact. I had, quite honestly, developed a bit of a crush on my former professor. He was sarcastic and bitter at times, but he had a grasp on logic that rivaled my own, and I'd never met anyone who engaged my mind as much as he did.

I added the seven scoops of aconite to the mixture in the cauldron and picked up the long glass stirring rod.

"Clockwise, Hermione," he intoned in my ear, his hand closing over my own. Together we stirred the bubbling mixture. I was acutely aware of the warm pressure of his long fingers over mine. He'd never done this before but I didn't want to pull away. He was so close to me that it was an effort on my part not to lean back and relax into him. I stared into the cauldron, trying to keep my focus on it.

"There," he said after a short time, pulling the stirring rod out of the cauldron, his hand still clasped warmly over mine. "On first glance it seems right."

I was studiously peering into the cauldron. When brewed correctly, the potion was supposed to be a brilliant magenta, and that was the color of the thick liquid inside the cauldron. "It's not smoking," I observed.

"I do not believe it is supposed to."

I shifted until I was leaning back against him. His other hand rested on my shoulder for a moment before it trailed a gentle caress down my left arm, leaving a pleasant tingle all the way down.

Just then, the front door to the shop opened with a jaunty clang of the bell and Severus moved away from me so suddenly that I almost fell over backwards, and had to grip the edge of the table to catch myself. In just an instant, Lucius pushed through the dark curtain that separated the heavily-protected backroom from the rest of the apothecary shop. He owned the shop and, as of a week ago, he was the man I was dating.

I could feel the heat rushing into my face, but the room was warm enough to explain that away. I turned my face up for him to kiss my cheek but, after a glance between my former professor and me, he closed his mouth to mine for a short, intense kiss.

"Finished, are you, my dear?" he asked, stepping up beside me to peer into the cauldron himself. While not at Severus' level, Lucius also knew his way around a cauldron.

I nodded and began transferring the brew into glass vials, carefully avoiding looking at either one of the wizards, who greeted each other like the old friends they were. When I was finished, I looked up to see Severus standing across the bench. His face had become cold, unreadable, which was a sure sign he was upset. "What's wrong?" I asked, watching him.

"I don't believe you've done this correctly," he sneered, gesturing at the bottles in a bored fashion.

"It hasn't blown up, it hasn't melted through the table, and it's exactly the right color." I folded my arms across my chest, staring at him across the table. "_I'm_ perfectly satisfied with it, to the point that I'm willing to hand it out for testing on request."

He bent over the bench, his black hair brushing the smooth wooden surface. He narrowed his eyes, moving just his head this way and that, peering into one of the vials. "It isn't the right color, you must have done something wrong." He straightened and came back around the table, making to move past me into the main area of the shop, on the other side from Lucius, who was standing there silently.

I grabbed his arm as he went to sweep past and he stopped, though he didn't turn to look at me. "I didn't do anything wrong. That is most certainly the right color."

"It is not," he replied in his disdainful way and I dropped my hand.

"You just said that it seems right," I pointed out.

"On first glance. Perhaps you missed the closer look I took at it just now?" Sarcasm was thick in his voice.

I rubbed my hand over my eyes, trying to keep my voice level. "Ok, so you have pink, right? And bright pink. And purple, and magenta. And that," I said, pointing my finger directly at the vial in question, "is _magenta_."

"It's not," he declared in his thin, even voice, his dark eyes snapping. "There is too much purple to be a true magenta."

"Or maybe," I gritted out, my own frustration with the situation growing by the moment, "your eyesight is failing in your old age. Because if that's not magenta, I'm a hippogriff."

Lucius let out an amused snort but didn't say anything. Severus and I argued from time to time and it always seemed to greatly amuse him. Often, when he thought our row had gone on long enough, he'd intervene and help smooth things over, taking aside the party who was in the wrong and tactfully pointing out that they were being a prat. Why he wasn't doing that now, I had no idea.

Severus turned his head and glared at me for a long moment. "When you are prepared to discuss this like an _adult_, please inform me." He continued on then, fetching up his black robes before he pushed through the curtain and stormed from the shop.

"That's mature!" I yelled after him, wincing as the door shut with an angry bang and the accompanying clatter of the bell.

"If he's in his dotage then I must be positively _ancient_," the remaining wizard said mildly.

I turned toward him with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Lucius, you know I don't think you're old."

"Indeed," he said, giving me a small, highly amused smile. He turned to face me, settling his hip against the edge of the bench and looking down at me. "Arguing about colors, that is a new one. It's been the amount of sunlight in the shop, the length of your hair, and how close he was standing, but I believe this is the first time a color has ever been the focus of your row."

Those were all actual arguments we'd had in the past, but at the mention of how close he was standing, I felt all the blood rush into my face again. He'd certainly been standing close to me not too long ago- and I hadn't minded in the slightest.

I started cleaned off the bench and grouped the potions together at the end, perhaps a little more vigorously than necessary. "Yes, but I'm right and he's being a prat."

"Fetching as you are when you're angry, I don't see how breaking the contested potions would help matters at all."

I sighed and turned my back on the table, leaning against the edge myself. "Sorry, Lucius," I snapped, then immediately regretted it. "And I'm sorry for snapping," I added, forcing my tone into something a little softer. "It's not the wrong color, is it?"

He circled his arms around my waist, pulling me against him. "That, my dear, is magenta."

I leaned my head against his chest and nodded, satisfied. "Of course it is. You heard him. Too purple? I don't think so."

"It's clearly not too purple. Which begs the question, why would Severus deliberately disagree with you?" His tone clearly indicated that he knew precisely why my former professor was deliberately disagreeing with me. But, because he was Lucius Malfoy, he couldn't just come out and tell me.

"He's going blind?" I suggested again. Then, remembering what I'd just said, I rushed on, "Not because he's old, but because he's a stubborn arse."

"Or he is irritated with you." He nuzzled his nose into my hair. Lucius was quite a bit more cuddly than I thought he would be. I'd asked him about it and he'd unabashedly told me that the war had left him in with a deep-seated fear of losing everything, and he couldn't lose the things he was holding onto.

"Why ever would he be irritated with me? We were doing just fine until..." I trailed off, recalling the way his hand had felt on top of mine.

"Why indeed?" He lifted up a strand of my hair and held it lightly between his fingers. "Tell me, my dear, how did you spend your evening yesterday?"

I blinked for a moment, thinking. "You took me to that play."

"And three nights before that?"

I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully. "You took me to that dreadful lecture on hellebore. Honestly, that wizard had no idea what he was talking about."

"And the last time you spent any of your leisure time with Severus was...?" The condescension was an even older habit than his cuddliness.

"But we're dating!" I exclaimed after a moment of thought. "We're supposed to be spending time together. And honestly, Severus hasn't wanted to go out anywhere since he's been out of St. Mungo's." If he was private before his injuries, he was doubly so now, to the point of leaving me alone in the front of the shop whenever potential customers came in. I made him accompany me to the monthly dinners with the rest of the former Order members, but aside from that he steadfastly refused to interact with anyone other than Lucius or myself. It got a little stifling, to be honest. All we did was stay in, which was why I'd been so eager to jump at the chance to get out with Lucius. "So why isn't he irritated with you?"

"Because he doesn't desire me."

I lifted my head and looked up into his cold gray eyes. "What?"

"Eloquent as always, my dear," he mocked gently. "Are you certain that you're not the one losing one of your senses?"

I frowned at him. "I heard you. I just don't know where it's coming from."

"Let me speak plainly, my dear."

"I certainly hope you will," I muttered, almost to myself.

"While you are, without question, a very lovely witch, my motives for beginning a romantic relationship with you were not purely motivated by my desire of you."

I lifted my chin and stared at him for a long moment, searching for the truth in his face. "So you're not attracted to me?"

"Don't jump to conclusions, my dear," he replied, lifting one hand to brush a stubborn lock of hair back from my forehead. "I am quite taken with you, that simply was not my initial motive for pursuing you."

My mind was almost spinning, it was working so fast. "So you asked me out despite the fact that Severus..." my tongue tripped over the words and I couldn't even finish the question.

"_Because_. Because Severus desires you."

"I'm afraid I don't..." I put out my tongue and wet my lips. "I don't understand."

"I believe you are familiar with the only other time Severus has loved a witch?" He made it into a question, and I nodded, but we both knew what had happened with Lily Evans. "You make Severus happier than I've seen him in longer than... Longer than you've been alive, my dear. I can't watch him lose that again through his own stubborn foolishness. His self-confidence is worse than it ever was and he's determined that no one could feel the same for him, especially now that he's covered in scars. I, of course, have seen the way you look at him, but he is just as stubborn as you are and simply won't listen to reason."

I felt the rush of blood coming into my face. Lucius _knew_ how I felt about Severus. This was the most awkward situation I had ever been in. "So you decided to..."

"Manipulate the situation? Yes," he declared baldly. "We must play to our strengths, my dear. And judging from the look on both of your faces when I entered the room, I was just a moment or two too soon."

I turned my face away from him, staring with great concentration at the curtain shutting us off from the front of the shop. "I still don't understand. You're dating me to get Severus to date me."

"I was at first," he admitted. "But now, I'm afraid, my motivation has become clouded."

"Meaning..." I prompted, very worried about what he was going to say.

"Meaning I very much want to push you over the bench and have my way with you." His voice was low, husky, and suddenly my mouth was very dry.

I opened my mouth and then closed it without saying anything. What was there to say, honestly? I cleared my throat. "I don't know what to say."

"Try for honesty, my dear, lies seem to make things unnecessarily complicated."

"There are qualities that I like about both of you," I said after a moment.

"Meaning you desire both of us."

Why did he have to put it that way? "Ye-es," I said slowly. "I do. But..."

"Go on," he urged quietly.

"But I'm not entirely sure I could have a lasting relationship with either one of you." I ducked my head down to stare my my feet.

"And why not?" The question was asked out of curiosity, there wasn't even a trace of defensiveness in his tone.

"You are... You're very clever, Lucius, but you don't engage my intellect the same way that Severus does. And Severus... Merlin help me, we'd kill each other."

He laughed at that, which surprised me enough to look up at his face. Lucius didn't laugh very often, and certainly not in public. He was raised very, stiff upper lip. "Yes, you two are exceedingly alike."

I sighed. "I suppose this means that we should stop seeing each other."

"Why is that, exactly?"

I watched him for a moment. "Because of... What I just said?"

He lifted one of his hands, still wearing the black leather gloves from when he was outside, and gently took my chin between his finger and thumb. I could feel the heat of his hand even through the leather. "Or you could see both of us."

I gaped at him for a moment. "What?"

His eyebrow quirked. "Close your mouth, my dear, before you catch flies with it." I obligingly closed my mouth. "You want both of us. Such things aren't common, certainly, but aren't unheard of in Wizarding society."

"Would Severus even be willing to..." I couldn't think of a delicate way to finish that statement.

"Share? I believe so." His voice was thickly threaded with amusement. "I suppose you would have to speak to him to find out for certain."

"And you wouldn't mind?"

"I brought it up, didn't I?" he drawled in that condescending fashion.

But the real question was, could I do it?

* * *

I had to find Severus. There was a good chance he would be at Malfoy Manor; that's where he was living and he didn't care to go out too often- and never alone. We left the shop, locking up behind us, and Lucius took my hand and Apparated us to his grand ancestral home. We appeared in the marble foyer, so clean it all but shone and he lifted my hand and let his lips graze my palm, sending a spark through me. "I'll arrange supper; we can all eat together after you two are finished talking."

"You think it's going to go that well?" I asked him dubiously.

"I think there's a good chance. I'll come and find you if you two take too long."

I nodded and watched him go, leaving me alone just inside the front door. Malfoy Manor was immense, with more rooms than I wanted to count, but I suspected that Severus would be in his own sitting room and so I headed there first.

As I had thought, he was sitting on a rich burgundy sofa, a book open on his knees and he was staring at it. He wasn't actually reading it, though, there was no movement in his eyes until he looked up at me. When he saw me, his face fell into a derisive smirk. "Hermione," he greeted with his thin voice.

I rolled my eyes at him. "You're being unreasonable, Severus."

"Am I?" he queried, a his voice just faintly mocking.

"You are, and you know it," I affirmed, moving through the room to sit beside him on the sofa. I folded my arms and gave him a hard look. "Stop it."

"Stop what?" he intoned, the cold, blank look settling over his face again. Years of practice had perfected the closed expression and watching him do it now made me roll my eyes again.

"You're being a git because I'm seeing Lucius. You told me to let you know when I was ready to discuss things as an adult, and I'm here now." I stopped to give him a chance to speak, but he didn't, so I kept on going. "You know just as well as I do that my potion is perfect, and you're sulking because he kissed me and you didn't."

I saw his jaw working in his cheek as he digested what I said. He didn't bother denying anything I'd said, he just watched me. "You think so?" he asked disdainfully.

"I know so," I told him, irritation narrowing my eyes as I stared at him.

"And what do you propose I do instead?" His voice was sarcastic, but there was something very vulnerable in his dark eyes.

"I don't know," I admitted after a moment, lifting my shoulders into a shrug. "Lucius suggested that I could date both of you."

"Did he?" The suggestion seemed to take him slightly aback as though it was something he'd never considered. I wasn't really surprised at that, it certainly wasn't anything I'd considered until very recently.

I nodded, settling back against the soft cushions of the sofa. "Yes. He seemed to think that would be the best option. The other option would be, of course, for me to stop seeing him and quite likely find another job."

"Why?"

I stared at him for a moment in disbelief. "Are you really asking why? After... After the way you touched me when we were finishing the potion? After the way it felt when you touched me? Are you telling me you honestly think that it wouldn't happen again and we could go back to being strictly politely professional with each other?"

His eyes left mine and he closed his book with a snap before getting up and moving to stand in front of the fireplace, leaving the book discarded where he'd been sitting. A fire was blazing warmly behind the grate and he seemed to stare into it, his hands clasped behind his back. "Why would you stop seeing him?"

I could barely hear him over the noise of the fire. I rose as well and went to stand beside him, casting my attention into the yellow and orange flames as well, arms still tightly folded in front of me. "Lucius is gorgeous and takes me out and we have a good time together, but he doesn't engage my mind as much as I need him to."

"He's not a dullard," Severus snapped, sounding offended on behalf of his friend.

"Of course not," I agreed easily. "But he's not as intelligent or astute as... Well, as you."

I kept my eyes trained ahead of me, but in my peripheral vision I could see him turn his face to look at me. "And you wouldn't consider me?"

"Alone? Merlin, no. We'd argue each other to death without someone- Lucius- to come between us." I could feel my face flushing as I said it, but there was no help for it.

"But you _would_ consider me?" he pressed, and I could feel myself growing hotter under his unerring gaze.

"Well, yes. I mean... Ever since you came out of St. Mungo's... And then you stayed with me... And now you're..." I was getting flustered and having a hard time forming coherent speech. I threw my arms impatiently down to my sides. "Yes," I snapped. "Yes, I would."

His hand came out and caught mine. He didn't pull me to him, he didn't make any move really, he just held my hand in his own. It was a tentative movement almost like he was shy, in sharp contrast to the way his hand had slid boldly over mine earlier that day. "And what do you think of Lucius' suggestion?"

"I'm not used to things like this. This is a curveball," I said, and I could hear the bemusement creeping into my voice.

"Curveball?" he asked, his gaze growing sharp as he stared down at me.

"It's a Muggle thing, in baseball, which is a sport kind of like Quidditch..." I sighed in exasperation. "Nevermind. But this is very new to me. I don't even know anyone in this type of relationship."

"The Weasley twins are," Severus broke in, his tone clearly indicating that this was something I should have known before he had to bring it up.

"Really?" I asked, somewhat mollified. Were they? With Angelina? But they were so... normal. I felt a flash of guilt. It really wasn't my place to be judging other people, especially when I was actually considering the same thing I was judging them for.

"Yes. It is more common with brothers but it does happen with close friends."

I nodded, digesting this. "But what about you? You're already jealous now, how would me also dating Lucius help that at all?"

"I'm not jealous," he replied with a sniff.

"Really? That's the stance you're taking?" I shook my head, taking my hand away from his grasp. "I almost fell on my arse this morning when Lucius walked in, and then when he kissed me you left in a great sulk."

"I do not sulk," he insisted.

I turned to face him, my hands on my hips. "Really? So what, exactly, were you doing here before I walked in? It wasn't as though you were reading."

His dark gaze slid away from mine and he stiffened in the telltale way he did when we were getting ready for a row. "What I do in my leisure time is none of your business."

I shook my head in disbelief. "We're talking about making what you do in your leisure time very much my business, and you're getting sulky again."

"I do. Not. Sulk," he insisted through gritted teeth.

"Then what the hell are you doing right now? I'm about positive that if you didn't think I would follow you out of here, you would already be walking away from me. _Again_." My voice had raised as I spoke until I was all-but-yelling.

Lucius entered smoothly through the door I'd left open. "I see we're still not able to converse like civilized adults," he drawled, settling his hip against the door frame to lounge in an elegant fashion. "Do stop glowering at me," he said to Severus when the dark wizard turned to face his friend. "There's no one here that you're going to intimidate. Discussion not going well, my dear?" he directed to me.

"No," I replied shortly. "I don't know if Severus would be able to stop being jealous long enough to have a go at it."

"Ah," was all the blond wizard said. He stood there, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of us. "And what about you? Would you be willing to try it? Or have you been using Severus' reluctance to open up as a way to avoid thinking about it yourself?"

It was uncanny how quickly he saw through me. I hesitated before answering. "I will if he will," I said almost as a challenge, gesturing to our silent companion.

"Good girl," Lucius said approvingly, in a way that made me want to stick my tongue out at him, dignified or not. "Well, Severus?"

"Fine," he intoned quietly, still sounding just a little bit sulky.

"Good," I snapped, moving past him to where Lucius was lounged in the door. "And the potion is magenta."

He reached out and easily snagged my arm as I stalked around him, and this time he did pull me to him. His other hand came up to trace my cheekbone with his finger. "Do you mean it, Hermione?" he asked me softly, all trace of anger gone from his face.

I stared into his dark eyes and nodded. "I do," I assured him just as quietly. "I've fancied you for entirely too long now."

"The potion is magenta," he admitted earnestly. "You are a brilliant witch."

The rush of heat came back to my cheeks. He wasn't free or easy with compliments, and my heart started thumping madly in my chest when he said it. "I thought I was an insufferable know-it-all," I teased gently.

"You are," he replied. He leaned forward and gently pressed his lips to mine in the most tentative kiss I'd ever had, as though he was afraid I was going to pull away or slap him or grab my wand and hex him into oblivion. I did none of those things. Instead, I smiled.

"There, you see?" Lucius broke in. I couldn't see him around Severus, but he certainly sounded smug. "Isn't that much better than arguing over the precise shade of purple that something is?"

"He is almost insufferable when he gloats," Severus murmured to me, so quietly that only I would hear. I had to giggle. "He always has been."

"Sharing secrets already? My, this is going to turn out well, isn't it?" the taller wizard drawled.

"I see what you mean," I answered, but I was cut off from further comment by the hungry growl from my stomach. I looked away from the dark eyes, slightly embarrassed.

"Come my dear, Severus," he addressed both of us in turn. "Let's enjoy a pleasant meal together."

The black-haired wizard just in front of me took the arm he still had possession of and tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow. We walked together to the door of the sitting room and, as we passed, Lucius took my other hand and did the same with his own arm. Together, the three of us walked down the hall. Maybe this was insane, or maybe this was the only way I could have a balanced relationship.


End file.
